


A Chance Encounter

by JuweWright



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Chocolate, Chocolate Frog Cards, F/M, First Kiss, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Express, Marauders, Marauders' Era, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 04:06:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16716293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuweWright/pseuds/JuweWright
Summary: A chance encounter on the Hogwarts express.





	A Chance Encounter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Geminisister](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geminisister/gifts).



Severus hated James Potter. While it was nothing new that girls were swooning at the very sight of James Potter Quidditch God, it had always been a little triumph for Severus to see that Lilly didn’t give a rat’s ass about the dark haired boy.

But since the last Quidditch match of the year, Lilly’s behavior had changed quite fundamentally and Severus had looked on with horror as she smiled at Potter in the hallways and even helped the idiot with his transfiguration homework. The final blow had been dealt when she had agreed to sit with Potter and his ilk on the Hogwarts Express on their way back home for Christmas break.

Severus found an empty compartment and sat down at the window seat. It had started snowing in the morning and already the world outside was covered in white. He watched his reflection feeling sorry for himself. During all his prior trips on the train, Lilly had always sat with him. She had made him feel like he belonged. Now she was laughing and smiling with Potter and Black who had spent every waking hour in the last school year making his life hell.

Somebody pushed the door open, got tangled in the curtains that Severus had drawn to shield himself from any onlookers who walked past and stumbled into the compartment.

“Oh. It’s you” the Ravenclaw girl said, panting. “I am sorry.”

She turned towards the door, listening. They could hear footsteps running past, then the girl relaxed. She was about as tall as Severus and slender to the point of looking frail. Severus estimated her to be about his age, perhaps a little younger. She wore her mouse-brown hair in a complicated-looking braided up-do. Her face was narrow, pale and freckled with a wide nose and eyes whose colour was an undecided mixture of blue and green. She smiled apologetically and Severus noticed the tiny gap between her upper front teeth. Endearing. He frowned at his own thoughts. Severus Snape did not find people endearing. He didn’t like people. Because nobody ever liked him.

“Sorry again” she repeated. “I just needed to get rid of Bertha. She doesn’t take it too well that I replaced her in the Slug-Club. Not that I want to be there. I mean, the dinners are good, but the conversations are – tiresome.”

She sunk down onto one of the seats.

“You’re Severus Snape, aren’t you? Lilly’s friend?”

She held out a hand.

“I’m Florence Ebbing.”

Severus hesitated for a second, then shook her hand and smiled.

“Nice to meet you.”

Florence looked around quizzically.

“Where’s Lilly? Don’t the two of you always sit together on the train? She had a row with someone in the club once, who insisted there can’t be a friendship between a Slytherin and a Gryffindor and she used the two of you as an example for the contrary.”

Severus sighed. Well, at least Lilly had valued their friendship enough to defend it in front of the Slug-club. But not enough to place if before her sudden interest in Potter.

“Ohhh” Florence noted understandingly as she watched his facial expression. “Bad topic?”

He nodded, leaning back in his seat.

“Kind of.”

“We’ll get some chocolate frogs from the trolley then” Florence said.

She seemed to have decided to stay in this compartment. Usually he’d have sat and sulked by himself and thrown out anyone who entered, but she seemed to be all right.

“So… Slug-Club?” he enquired. “How did you end up in that illustrious circle?”

He remembered Lilly’s stories about the club and how she’d mocked the whole setup and Slughorn’s obsession to ‘collect’ promising students.

“I sneaked into the potions classroom at night and brewed a cauldron of _Felix Felicis_ when I was in third year.”

She didn’t sound boastful. If anything, she sounded sad.

“That’s pretty impressive” Severus noted.

One day in second year he had by chance found a room on the seventh floor. He had managed to steal a cauldron from the supply cabinet in the dungeons and brought it there. He’d also acquired the necessary ingredients he needed to brew the potions from “Advanced Potion Making”. It had never occurred to him to just do his out-of-hours-potion-brewing in the classroom though. Also, he had made _Felix Felicis_ himself, but he had not managed to quite get it right before his fourth year.

“I wanted to give it to my mother” Florence said calmly. “She had cancer. I thought if I just sneaked some of the potion into her food, I could make it go away. I even managed to fill a bottle with the stuff and hide it before Slughorn caught me. But it never worked. She died.”

For a few minutes both of them were silent. Severus was touched by the story. How did one respond to something as emotional as this? Was she crying? He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and leaned over, offering it to her. She took it with a thankful nod, dabbed her eyes with it and blew her nose, before pushing it into her cloak pocket.

“I’ll wash it and give it back to you after the holidays” she promised.

He shrugged.

Florence still had tears in the corners of her eyes but she smiled at him.

“You’re a little strange, Severus Snape. But not in a bad way.”

For some reason, the compartment suddenly seemed much lighter.

When the trolley came, Florence bought way too many sweets for both of them to ever eat and they exchanged some chocolate-frog cards. They started to talk about school and which subjects they liked and which they despised. It turned out that they had a lot in common. They both loved Potions and whilst Florence preferred Transfiguration and Severus preferred Charms they agreed that Defence against the Dark Arts was the coolest subject ever.

Just when they had started on a discussion about boggarts, the breaks of the Hogwarts Express screeched loudly and the train came to a halt.

“Well, that’s new” Severus noted. “It never stopped before. Why would it stop in the middle of nowhere?”

Florence shrugged.

“As we’re in Scotland: There might be a flock of sheep on the rails?”

“They wouldn’t have seen them in the snow. You know white sheep, white snow…”

“Blood on the snow…” Florence followed his thoughts.

So she had a sense of humour that was open to a little bit of macabre influences. He liked her more every minute.

“The one time when being a black sheep can save lives” the girl added.

She pushed down the window to be able to have a proper look outside. Severus followed her gaze. The train had just been going round a curve and the engine was clearly visible from their viewpoint. It didn’t look broken. There was steam puffing from the exhaust after all. So why had they stopped?

“Oh crap” Florence finally said pointing a bit ahead of the engine. “The bridge is gone.”

Indeed, where there had been the old aqueduct spanning the valley, there was just – a pretty huge gap. And it was a miracle that with the weather conditions as bad as they were, the train had not just run right into the abyss.

“I guess that’s going to take a while to fix” Severus stated dryly.

Just when he had done so, a voice echoed through the train.

THERE HAS BEEN AN UNEXPECTED STOP. WE ARE LOOKING INTO THE PROBLEM AND WILL RESUME OUR JOURNEY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. PLEASE REMAIN INSIDE THE TRAIN.

A “whoop” was heard and the next moment a huge snowball flew past the window. The Slytherin boy and Ravenclaw girl followed the flight-path of the missile back to its origin.

“So much about ‘remaining inside’” Florence sighed. “As if anyone ever managed to keep James and Sirius from starting a snowball fight.”

She grabbed her wand and before Severus could ask what she was doing, she had waved it with a cunning flick and the snow in front of their window had formed into the biggest snowball he had ever seen. Its diameter was at least five feet and it glowed with a light blue sheen. Florence waved the wand again, sending the ball off on its merry way. The next moment, Potter and Black had noticed the threat and were running like crazy to escape the wrath of the huge magic snowball rolling behind them.

Severus was laughing way too hard watching their panicked faces.

“What the hell did they do to you?” he asked after Florence finally let the ball explode covering the two Gryffindors in snow.

 “I have watched them mistreat you and about half a dozen other pupils around the school. They think that they are better than others and instead of using their privilege for the good, they behave like complete and utter pricks. Let’s just say, I am not a fan.”

She hesitated for a moment, looking him up and down as if considering whether he was worthy of her trust.

“Also, Sirius used to snog me in secret for weeks. But after Bertha Jorkins caught us making out behind the greenhouses, he made it sound as if I had just thrown myself at him. It was him who sent me self-destruct love-letters and flowers and all that jazz! But I’m neither popular nor beautiful enough to be a presentable partner for the oh-so-tall-dark-and-handsome Sirius Black. ‘I am sorry, Florence, but you know, this thing we had, that was just a bit of fun.’”

Her rage made her cheeks flush and she clenched her fists before she banged the window shut again.

“Need to bite someone’s head off?”

Severus held out the last chocolate frog and she unwrapped it quickly.

“Well at least I didn’t end up an ‘unkissable’” she finally said. “You know what they say…”

There was the unwritten rule that if you didn’t manage to get kissed in your Hogwarts years, you’d die an old maid or would forever stay a bachelor. It was just a saying, but it still nagged at Severus that he had only one and a half years left. He had always hoped Lilly would be the one, but with her hanging out with Potter now, fat chance she’d start calling him ‘Snivellus’ instead.

He sighed.

“Oh damn” Florence said, taking a swig from her mug of tea. “Did I just uncover one of Severus Snape’s worst secrets?”

Severus shrugged and leaned back, closing his eyes.

“Go ahead. Laugh at me!” he said, trying to hide the pain in his voice.

“Why exactly should I laugh at you?” Florence enquired.

“Because I was a stupid fool to believe that a girl who had the choice between super-Potter and me would ever not choose Potter.”

He could feel Florence’s fingers brush over his.

“If I had the choice between sitting here with you or sitting here with Potter, I know whose company I’d prefer.”

Severus opened his eyes again to notice how very close Florence had shifted to him. She grinned and sat down on his lap.

“What does Potter have? A head full of Quidditch and way too much self-confidence. As I don’t give two hoots about Quidditch, what would I talk to him about?”

When he breathed in he could smell her scent, a mixture of chocolate and wool. Then, suddenly, she bent down and kissed him. Her lips were a bit sticky from the chocolate and a little sprung from the cold weather. But they were warm and soft. She stepped back after what felt like both an eternity and a second, cheeks flushed.

“There you go” she grinned. “Can’t really have that, can we? Severus Snape staying single forever.”

She jumped up and pushed down the window again.

“There’s like ten official-looking ministry wizards standing at the abyss, arguing about how to best repair the bridge. Guess you’re stuck with me for a while longer.”

Severus smiled. He could imagine worse things.

**Author's Note:**

> Florence is a character that was never elaborated on in the books. The only reference we have to her is the greenhouse snogging incident that Bertha Jorkins remembers.


End file.
